Hide and Seek

Meme's house

Christmas at my Grandparents house was always a fun time. Pepe' had Santa suit that he wore every year.  Why Santa came to our grandparent house in the middle of the afternoon on Christmas day, was never questioned. We were kids. It was more stuff and we liked more stuff. Speaking of stuff. We like sweet stuff too. My Meme' (aka elastic grandma) had candy everywhere. Every room had a candy dish. Every room had a kid with dirty fingers picking through a candy dish. The assortment of candy was endless. Chocolate macaroons. Yum. Hard pillow candy. White sugary mint pillow candy. Soft creamy candy. Candy canes and  life savers. Double yum. A cornucopia of cavity causing confectionery delight. We would lay on the living room rug wearing our new Pajamas. Pajamas were a given, given the fact that we grew out of last Christmas's  PJ's. We would color in our new coloring books and wait for the sugar to kick in. After the meal the old folks hung out in the dinning room. To smoke, drink, play cards and curse. We kids had better games to play.  Building playing card houses wasn't going to do it. Besides, it didn't matter how tall you could make a structure an inevitable wind storm was approaching. Not a real wind storm but a real windbag, one of brothers.  They were bored or maybe, just jealous of my architectural ability. I was the little pig and they were the wolves. There was no way to stop my masterpiece from becoming a dismantled straw house.  There were new games to play and a house filled with sugar stoners kids to play them. The best game was hide and seek.

Hide and seek or hang go seek. Hey! I was a kid that's what I heard.

There are three rules when it comes to hide and seek; the location of home free, the ability to count and no peeking. Home free at Meme's was the couch in the backroom. It was a den. For some reason they never called the den, the den. If it's got a couch, a rocker with broken springs and a TV, it's a den. Come to think of it, my Meme' never called me Denis. She'd say in a very tick (Tick is thick in French) accent Dur Knee.  They called the room in the back the house the backroom. A tradition my mother carried with her to Buckingham. Even the word, backroom sounded funny. Her French/English sounded more like bat room. I was happy to call it the bat room. I was a big Batman fan. It was confusing sometimes because  the bat room could also mean the bathroom. I don't now when the name got change to TV room but it think it was a good thing. 

I can't remember when we started playing hide and seek but I'm sure it was before we even knew how to count. I remember kneeling down with my face planted into a quilt. The couch had to have quilt covering the cushions because the material was so ruff it could scratch an eye out. Now, I'm no aficionado on couches but this green kitchen scrubby couch was all about function and had nothing to do with style.  I would wait, my face sweating, listening for confirmation from the hiders. While I waited, kids would scurry passed the adults. One place we'd never hide was in the dinning room. The cloud of smoke could be a good camouflage but the inevitable tongue lashing would give your location away. kids should be seen and not heard didn't apply to hide and seek but it did apply to old folks playing euchre. Not one of us kids every hid there. The table was littered with cigarette butts, playing cards, Fat bottles of bear and profanity. The fog did nothing to soften the sound of fists pounding the table and one word being yelled repeatedly : TRUMP!  

My meme's (aka elastic band grandma) house had the best hiding spots. Across the smoke filled dining room there was a closet. It was a huge closet. It had more hangers than a clothing store. Fur coats, overcoats and moth balls everywhere. Boxes and more boxes. Shoe boxes, hat boxes. Boxes with Christmas decorations inside and other haphazard things you could pile up and hide behind.  If you could hold your breath and your nose, you could stay in there a long time. Apparently we couldn't get to the treasure trove in the attic upstairs. My sisters got to enjoy that. Besides, we didn't like to play dress up, especially if it's old lady clothes. We did discovered another great hiding place. The upstairs bat room or bathroom if you're English. I can't remember if the room was all mint tile or baby blue. I seem to recall that the bathtub had a matching hue. I don't know if it was retro or just dated. There was a closet that went all the way around the back of the tub surround. You could hide there for hours and the only thing that would find you would be a mouse. There were a couple rooms that were off limits. My Pepe's office and workshop in the basement.  

Let the games begin. A thousand kids would muffle their voice (to hide there location) and yell I'm ready! I'd be on the hunt. It was a great fun. Eventually, we would play ourselves out and fall asleep on the floor. Until we got scooped up for the car ride home. I remember when I was older, I played hide and seek with my Meme' only she wasn't playing. I hid in the Bat room (the TV room) while she frantically tried to find me. She kept calling my name. Dur Knee, Dur Knee. I didn't say a peep. I finally gave in but boy was she mad. It was a mean trick and I did feel bad playing that prank on her. I don't think I ever played hide and seek there again.

My House

At my home the game was played a little different. We played inside when it was raining but outside is where we wanted to be. I think our parents want it that way too. I can't help but wonder how many children were conceived during the hours we played outside. It was hours. It was really the only alone time they had. They never had to bug us to go outside and play. Some things are better not to think about. We didn't. I am older and thinking back, I still don't want to think about it. 

One house over stood our home free pole. The bottom of the pole was painted white and was etched with all our names. I wasn't allowed a knife when I was a kid. My friend Mike had Swiss army knife. For obvious reasons, pop tops and to carve names into a streetlight pole. If it was the weekend we could play even when it was dark. During the school nights we could play but our play was timed. We couldn't ignore it because the home free pole was street light. When it came on, we had to go home. Sometimes we'd ignore the street light and hope that dad would forget about us but we couldn't ignore the high pitched whistle. Game over. 

 It was a different time then. Everyone in our neighborhood, knew everyone in our neighborhood. We wouldn't use the phone to see if the kids wanted to play. We would press our noses to their screen doors and call out their name. It was almost musical. Every name had two syllables. Stewart became Stu-wart. The first part of the name was at a higher pitch and the ending kind of tailed off. Hearing your name called in such a way was more than a celebration of friendship, it was an invitation to fun. 

My youngest brother was always it first. And even if he found us we could outrun him to the home free pole. I felt sorry for him and ran slow on purpose. I knew everyone's hiding place anyway. My sister would be in a tree somewhere.  Mike would be peeking over the top of a roof. The playhouse across the street was off limits but you could hide behind it. Our block had two hedges that were great for hiding in. They were off limits but we disregarded the rules. They belonged to old man Trudell and old man St. Louis. But kids will be kids. Old Man Trudell knew my oldest brother because my older brother used to go into Charlie's. Charlie's is a bar near Buckingham. I don't know if he had fake ID or that he looked old enough but I think he and the old man titled a few beers at once upon a time. One day old man Trudell lost it. There was knock on our front door. He was pissed up and started to yell at my dad. Those kids are ruining my hedges! My dad flexed his Popeye arms and the old man changed his tone. Dad talked to us boys and we agreed not to hide in his hedges again. My sister's didn't think it applied to them and did it anyway. We were little stinkers with a bunch of energy. Every kid on the block played. That is, when we weren't playing street hockey. Time would fly by and then we would heard that whistle. We knew it was game over.